Having raced this year with the Leopard Trek team, the Austrian Stefan Denifl and the Danish rider Martin Mortensen will add their strength to the Vacansoleil DCM team in 2012. The duo increases the Dutch team’s lineup to 27 riders and help it increase its overall potential for results next season.

At 24 years of age, Denifl is the younger of the two. He was third on a stage of the Tour of Austria this year, fifth in the GP Cycliste de Montréal and also ninth in the Grand Prix de Wallonie. Mortensen, who is two years older, was second in the Danish road race championships and eighth in the prologue of the Tour of Luxembourg.

The latter was part of the team in 2009 and 2010, while Denifl worked under current Vacansoleil directeur sportif Jean Paul van Poppel while with the Cervélo Test Team in 2010.

“First we looked at keeping our strong core and young Dutch and Belgium riders for 2012 but also for 2013,” Van Poppel explained. “After securing the future with them we looked to make our 2012 team stronger for the hard WorldTour program. We looked at relatively young riders with WorldTour experience and found them with Denifl and Mortensen.

“Our team has an above average number of riders who get results during the complete season. It is extremely important for us to have more than one or two scoring riders during the season.”

After a year with Leopard Trek, Mortensen said that he was pleased to head back to a familiar setup. “There is a lot of confidence from the team management which I appreciate a lot,” he said. “The core of this growing team has been the same for many years and I am happy to return in the family.

“I look forward to working hard in the spring for riders like [Bjorn] Leukemans and [Marco] Marcato. One of my own goals is to do a Grand Tour in 2012. Preferably the Giro, which starts in Herning, the town I grew up in.”

The squad is one of those currently awaiting verification from the UCI that it will be part of the WorldTour setup in 2012. If so, it will gain automatic access to all three Grand Tours, plus many other top events.

Spaces are tight on the Leopard Trek squad due to the addition of several riders from the current RadioShack team.